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mousmeToday marks the second day of the Tell me what to write about meme.
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hells_half_acre asked: What makes a good antagonist in your opinion? What kind of "bad guys" do you love to hate?
That's a loaded question, because I don't think there's only one good kind of antagonist. I have loved to hate so many different bad guys in my time, that I'd be hard-pressed to pick just one kind. It also depends a lot on the genre of the story, doesn't it?
So let's talk bad guys.
I- Evil for the Sake of Being Evil
No, seriously, who doesn't like outright evil villains? Especially in larger-scale, epic clashes in fantasy especially, but basically in any larger narrative where the lines are clearly drawn between the forces of good and evil.
Nothing tells me "this is the guy to worry about" when a character walks on screen and Force-chokes a puppy, and I adore that lack of ambiguity.
Subcategory of the "Evil for the Sake of Being Evil" bad guy, is the comedic bad guy, who exists as a sort of evil buffoon solely to serve as a pretext for the comedic hero to be heroic.
Exhibit A:
II- The Competent Bad Guy
Nothing pulls me out of a story faster than a bad guy who succeeds by sheer luck. James Bond and comic book villains aside ("Before I kill you, Mr. Bond, let me explain to you at length the improbable and protracted death I have planned for you!"), I am not a fan of bad guys who stall unnecessarily in order to brag about how clever they were. Monologuing is only acceptable in certain types of narratives, and I am very choosy about it.
Give me a competent bad guy any day. One who works subtly, behind the scenes, who knows his enemy's weaknesses and exploits them mercilessly. I love it when my heroes are made to damn well work for their answers, when each victory is won with blood, sweat and tears.
III- The Sympathetic Villain
There are some villains whom you can't help but feel for, even if you're rooting for your heroes to win and for the villains to fail. When it comes to these villains I spend a lot of time yelling at the screen: "No, you ass! Look at your life! Look at your choices! There was another way out the whole time, and you are being blind and stupid and the narrative demands that you fail and I want things to be okay!"
This is the kind of story wherein you end up knowing a lot more about the villain's back story than you would in other narratives. You know their motivation, their personality, you probably even get a fair bit of their point of view, and so you can't help but empathise, even if you don't sympathise. The thing is, these antagonists remind us that there are no hard and fixed lines between good and evil, that everyone's life consists of a series of choices (made by themselves and others) that have led them to this one moment in time that the author has chosen to share with us.
IV-The Bad Guy Who Is Actually the Good Guy
Ah, those scoundrels! Lawbreakers and thieves and pirates! We do love us a bad boy, don't we?
They're not quite antiheroes. They're the heroes of their own narrative, which in this case happens to be our narrative as well. All bad guys think they're the hero of their own story, after all. The only difference is that in this case the audience happens to agree with them. The key, of course, is for them to have a personal code that they always follow, no matter what. Honour among thieves, integrity amidst the pirates, solidarity between Browncoats.
Big damn heroes, am I right?
Okay, so I cheated a little bit with this one, because these are technically not villains when they are the heroes of the piece. Still, I felt it was necessary to include them in an attempt at being comprehensive about the types of "bad guys" I like.
V- The Good Guy Who's Actually a Bad Guy
This is quite possibly my favourite kind of antagonist, the representative of the forces of law and order who has become corrupt, who has let power blind him, who has essentially lost sight of what their position of authority truly means. I love this type of antagonist because I am, by nature, a pretty law-abiding person. I follow the rules, believe in the rule of law, and am always appalled when instances of abuse of power come to light. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of the real-life instances of this, and so I find it especially cathartic when these people are brought to justice in fiction.
There are, of course, many variants on this particular theme. There are the officers of the law who've lost their way and only need to be brought back to the fold, reminded of the ideals that brought them to serve in the first place.
And then there are the unabashedly evil characters, the ones who aspired to power and took it only in order to exploit the weak and to take power from the strong. The ones who need to be locked away in a dungeon and the key fed to the nearest dragon.
The subset of that is, of course the Bad Guy Pretending to be a Good Guy. People trust him, because he's the Sheriff/Mayor/School Principal, etc. Of course, he's the very embodiment of evil, but it's difficult for the average person to see that. Typically the hero of the narrative is someone marginalised for some reason, usually a teenager or other kind of outsider, a loser, someone whose opinions no one takes seriously. This makes the bad guy's story all the more convincing and our hero's situation all the more dire, since the bad guy seems to hold all the cards.
Although I used the image of the Mayor from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I feel compelled to point out that I did not, in fact, enjoy that particular portrayal. It was okay, but while everyone else raved about how brilliant it was, I couldn't help but feel that it was all kind of... ordinary. It was an okay performance, as I said, but as I explained it to someone else: "I see what you were aiming for, and you kind of hit to the side of the target, rather than a bull's eye."
So, full disclosure, I am not in agreement with the majority of viewers when it comes to Season 3 of Buffy. :)
VI- The Good Guy Who Becomes A Bad Guy
There are two categories for this (possibly more, but I can only think of two). The first is the hero or ally who ends up turning to the Dark Side as a betrayal of his allies. I suppose this ties in a little with my category of Sympathetic Villain, but I'm putting it here because ostensibly this character started out as a hero or protagonist.
***WARNING***SPOILERS FOR AGENTS OF SHIELD***WARNING***
Although I am disappointed in AoS for basically pulling ALL its punches for about 18 episodes before this big reveal, I must say that Grant Ward became a million times more interesting after he was revealed as a bad guy. The fact that he was pretending to be this bland cookie-cutter boy toy the whole time, as opposed to actually being a bland cookie-cutter boy toy is infinitely more interesting to me, and I'm intrigued to see where they'll take it next season.
Also in this category: Angel, from Buffy. Quite possibly one of my favourite villains to this day, because the reversal was so absolute, and the psychological trauma so very, very painful. Great times.
The other category is the protagonist who becomes a bad guy over the course of the story. I can't think of too many instances of this, but there are a few. The Talented Mr. Ripley comes to mind (I haven't seen the movie but read the book many years ago). And, of course, there's this guy:
I haven't seen the last half of the last season, so no spoilers! But it's been patently clear since, oh, Season 2 or thereabouts, that Walter White had lost the moral high ground. He was given multiple opportunities to step away from the bad choices he was making, and instead he chose to dig his hole even deeper. Not only that, but he deliberately made increasingly immoral choices as time went on. His original goal of $750k attained, he decided it "wasn't enough," and carried on making meth. When people got in his way, he started by threatening them and then by killing them. He manipulated his friends, abused his wife, and by the middle of Season 5 (when I stopped watching, not for lack of interest, though) he was still getting away with it.
While I was actively rooting against Walter by the end, I do love getting the bad guy's POV during a story. Because I can empathise with them, and because it is their story, I find that often I can wish them, if not success, then at least a happy resolution.
I'm sure there's lots more I could say, but it's time to go to work. I shall check in again from there, perhaps with a proper status update about myself.
Ciao!
hells_half_acre asked: What makes a good antagonist in your opinion? What kind of "bad guys" do you love to hate? That's a loaded question, because I don't think there's only one good kind of antagonist. I have loved to hate so many different bad guys in my time, that I'd be hard-pressed to pick just one kind. It also depends a lot on the genre of the story, doesn't it?
So let's talk bad guys.
I- Evil for the Sake of Being Evil
No, seriously, who doesn't like outright evil villains? Especially in larger-scale, epic clashes in fantasy especially, but basically in any larger narrative where the lines are clearly drawn between the forces of good and evil.
Nothing tells me "this is the guy to worry about" when a character walks on screen and Force-chokes a puppy, and I adore that lack of ambiguity.
Subcategory of the "Evil for the Sake of Being Evil" bad guy, is the comedic bad guy, who exists as a sort of evil buffoon solely to serve as a pretext for the comedic hero to be heroic.
Exhibit A:
II- The Competent Bad Guy
Nothing pulls me out of a story faster than a bad guy who succeeds by sheer luck. James Bond and comic book villains aside ("Before I kill you, Mr. Bond, let me explain to you at length the improbable and protracted death I have planned for you!"), I am not a fan of bad guys who stall unnecessarily in order to brag about how clever they were. Monologuing is only acceptable in certain types of narratives, and I am very choosy about it.
Give me a competent bad guy any day. One who works subtly, behind the scenes, who knows his enemy's weaknesses and exploits them mercilessly. I love it when my heroes are made to damn well work for their answers, when each victory is won with blood, sweat and tears.
III- The Sympathetic Villain
There are some villains whom you can't help but feel for, even if you're rooting for your heroes to win and for the villains to fail. When it comes to these villains I spend a lot of time yelling at the screen: "No, you ass! Look at your life! Look at your choices! There was another way out the whole time, and you are being blind and stupid and the narrative demands that you fail and I want things to be okay!"
This is the kind of story wherein you end up knowing a lot more about the villain's back story than you would in other narratives. You know their motivation, their personality, you probably even get a fair bit of their point of view, and so you can't help but empathise, even if you don't sympathise. The thing is, these antagonists remind us that there are no hard and fixed lines between good and evil, that everyone's life consists of a series of choices (made by themselves and others) that have led them to this one moment in time that the author has chosen to share with us.
IV-The Bad Guy Who Is Actually the Good Guy
Ah, those scoundrels! Lawbreakers and thieves and pirates! We do love us a bad boy, don't we?
They're not quite antiheroes. They're the heroes of their own narrative, which in this case happens to be our narrative as well. All bad guys think they're the hero of their own story, after all. The only difference is that in this case the audience happens to agree with them. The key, of course, is for them to have a personal code that they always follow, no matter what. Honour among thieves, integrity amidst the pirates, solidarity between Browncoats.
Big damn heroes, am I right?
Okay, so I cheated a little bit with this one, because these are technically not villains when they are the heroes of the piece. Still, I felt it was necessary to include them in an attempt at being comprehensive about the types of "bad guys" I like.
V- The Good Guy Who's Actually a Bad Guy
This is quite possibly my favourite kind of antagonist, the representative of the forces of law and order who has become corrupt, who has let power blind him, who has essentially lost sight of what their position of authority truly means. I love this type of antagonist because I am, by nature, a pretty law-abiding person. I follow the rules, believe in the rule of law, and am always appalled when instances of abuse of power come to light. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of the real-life instances of this, and so I find it especially cathartic when these people are brought to justice in fiction.
There are, of course, many variants on this particular theme. There are the officers of the law who've lost their way and only need to be brought back to the fold, reminded of the ideals that brought them to serve in the first place.
And then there are the unabashedly evil characters, the ones who aspired to power and took it only in order to exploit the weak and to take power from the strong. The ones who need to be locked away in a dungeon and the key fed to the nearest dragon.
The subset of that is, of course the Bad Guy Pretending to be a Good Guy. People trust him, because he's the Sheriff/Mayor/School Principal, etc. Of course, he's the very embodiment of evil, but it's difficult for the average person to see that. Typically the hero of the narrative is someone marginalised for some reason, usually a teenager or other kind of outsider, a loser, someone whose opinions no one takes seriously. This makes the bad guy's story all the more convincing and our hero's situation all the more dire, since the bad guy seems to hold all the cards.
Although I used the image of the Mayor from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I feel compelled to point out that I did not, in fact, enjoy that particular portrayal. It was okay, but while everyone else raved about how brilliant it was, I couldn't help but feel that it was all kind of... ordinary. It was an okay performance, as I said, but as I explained it to someone else: "I see what you were aiming for, and you kind of hit to the side of the target, rather than a bull's eye."
So, full disclosure, I am not in agreement with the majority of viewers when it comes to Season 3 of Buffy. :)
VI- The Good Guy Who Becomes A Bad Guy
There are two categories for this (possibly more, but I can only think of two). The first is the hero or ally who ends up turning to the Dark Side as a betrayal of his allies. I suppose this ties in a little with my category of Sympathetic Villain, but I'm putting it here because ostensibly this character started out as a hero or protagonist.
***WARNING***SPOILERS FOR AGENTS OF SHIELD***WARNING***
Although I am disappointed in AoS for basically pulling ALL its punches for about 18 episodes before this big reveal, I must say that Grant Ward became a million times more interesting after he was revealed as a bad guy. The fact that he was pretending to be this bland cookie-cutter boy toy the whole time, as opposed to actually being a bland cookie-cutter boy toy is infinitely more interesting to me, and I'm intrigued to see where they'll take it next season.
Also in this category: Angel, from Buffy. Quite possibly one of my favourite villains to this day, because the reversal was so absolute, and the psychological trauma so very, very painful. Great times.
The other category is the protagonist who becomes a bad guy over the course of the story. I can't think of too many instances of this, but there are a few. The Talented Mr. Ripley comes to mind (I haven't seen the movie but read the book many years ago). And, of course, there's this guy:
I haven't seen the last half of the last season, so no spoilers! But it's been patently clear since, oh, Season 2 or thereabouts, that Walter White had lost the moral high ground. He was given multiple opportunities to step away from the bad choices he was making, and instead he chose to dig his hole even deeper. Not only that, but he deliberately made increasingly immoral choices as time went on. His original goal of $750k attained, he decided it "wasn't enough," and carried on making meth. When people got in his way, he started by threatening them and then by killing them. He manipulated his friends, abused his wife, and by the middle of Season 5 (when I stopped watching, not for lack of interest, though) he was still getting away with it.
While I was actively rooting against Walter by the end, I do love getting the bad guy's POV during a story. Because I can empathise with them, and because it is their story, I find that often I can wish them, if not success, then at least a happy resolution.
I'm sure there's lots more I could say, but it's time to go to work. I shall check in again from there, perhaps with a proper status update about myself.
Ciao!
